


or, the children's crusade

by Granspn



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Basically, Sickfic, and get in his head a little, and i want them to talk :), and since we all apparently love to torture him :/, but basically everyone at the 4077th loves him dearly, just my excuse to talk a little about hawk's happy kidhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:29:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26514478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Granspn/pseuds/Granspn
Summary: hawkeye gets caught in a wave of hemorrhagic fever and does what he can not to stop his entire internal monologue from spilling out whenever he opens his mouth, and maybe learns to appreciate the little things instead of needing to singlehandedly stop the war all the time“‘Thanks, Major,’ he says, ‘I’m really doing fine. Just a hair’s breadth closer to death than I’d been…’ at which point he faints and collapses into Margaret’s arms. She bears his weight well, though after all he’s only a hundred and seventy pound fruitcake. In his last split second of consciousness all he can think is that he can’t believe he fell into her arms and not BJ’s.”
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100





	or, the children's crusade

**Author's Note:**

> let’s say this takes place circa season 7 or 8 where bj has a mustache and he and hawk are deep into acting married territory. It’s basically my excuse to write a little about Hawkeye’s childhood and whatever is actually going on in that head of his bc I love him terribly even if we do love to torture him in fics apparently. Also inspired by “I’m illiterate, but BJ reads to me every night.”

Hawkeye feels terrible. His head is pounding, his throat is dry, and his heart rate and temperature must be up to the same number somewhere in the hundreds. He leans against the cool porcelain of the hotel sink in Tokyo and knows when he gets back they’ll have to lay him up with the fever. He drinks a handful of water from the tap knowing he shouldn’t, knowing it will be his last for a while. If Frank’s endless string of horrific facts about his childhood from when he was sick is anything to go by, when Hawkeye really gets going he won’t be able to keep all his memories inside long enough to remember what’s kosher and what’s not. And he doesn’t know if it will be better or worse if BJ is the one taking care of him.

He comes back early. BJ is startled by the sound of the jeep pulling up and comes outside to greet him.

“What are you doing back here? I didn’t want to see you for another two days,” BJ says, and it’s a joke, since of course he wants nothing more than to see Hawkeye. Of course, he’d prefer him looking like he wasn’t on death’s door, but he’ll take what he can get.

“I’ve got the fever,” Hawkeye explains. BJ grabs his bag from the jeep and thanks the driver.

“Where do you want to go?” BJ asks.

“Post-op,” Hawkeye says. “So everyone can keep an eye on my fluids.” BJ nods and starts walking him there. Major Houlihan stops them along the way.

“Back so soon, Pierce?” she says. “Do you always have to come back from leave in such a state?”

“Hemorrhagic fever,” BJ says. Margaret immediately softens and comes to Hawkeye’s other side.

“Oh, Hawkeye, I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you.”

“Thanks, Major,” he says, “I’m really doing fine. Just a hair’s breadth closer to death than I’d been…” at which point he faints and collapses into her arms. She bears his weight well, though after all he’s only a hundred and seventy pound fruitcake. In his last split second of consciousness all he can think is that he can’t believe he fell into her arms and not BJ’s.

When he comes to, his mother is sitting at the foot of his bed, which can’t be right. The last time he was sick was after Major Houlihan gave him that bad flu shot. Before then, the last time he can really remember being like this was the mumps, in third grade, which is why he just about believes that’s where he is now.

“Mom, I don’t think I can go to school today,” he mumbles. Mom looks a little different.

“Oh, Hawkeye,” she dotes.

“When did you dye your hair?”

“My hair?” She looks taken aback.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It looks nice.”

“Thank you, Hawkeye.”

“Mrs. Barber is gonna have a fit. She’s gonna think you’re copying her.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Okay,” he agrees, placated for the moment, then hit with an overwhelming wave of nausea. He wills it to pass without incident, and when it does, he rubs at his eyes with the arm untethered by an IV tube. When he opens them again his mother is gone, which is okay since it means his sanity is returning. Still, it was nice while it lasted.

“Margaret,” Hawkeye says. God, his throat is dry.

“Yes?” she says. He knows her as a cold person, but her smile is very warm. She really is an excellent nurse.

“Sorry,” he says, and laughs a little, as much as he can muster. “I really thought you were my mom for a second.”

“That’s okay,” she says gently, and pats his hand. “Maybe this won’t surprise you, but I actually get that a lot.”

“Of course,” he says. The guys that come through there are just babies.

“We could try and get her on the phone if you’d like,” Margaret offers. Hawkeye tries to return the warmth of her smile, and doesn’t know if he manages.

“No use,” he says. “The line’s dead.”

Margaret looks confused. Of course, she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And the phones at the 4077th are working fine. She leaves it at that, though, and after a comforting brush on his arm moves on to the other patients.

Naturally, he dreams that he is eight years old. When he wakes up, he can tell he’s in a hospital somewhere, and assumes it’s in Boston. Although, it doesn’t really look like the hospital. It doesn’t even really look like Carlye’s hospital, and why he would be there, he doesn’t know. It’s a little run down. Maybe Dad took him back to Maine. Maybe Crabapple Cove finally has its own hospital. A man in a black shirt and a Panama hat sees him stirring. Everybody else is wearing green.

“How are you feeling, Hawkeye?” the man asks, taking a seat on a crate beside his bed. He has kind eyes behind round spectacles, and is wearing a cross around his neck.

“Don’t waste your time on me,” Hawkeye tries to say nicely. “I don’t believe in God.”

The man, the priest, takes Hawkeye’s hand in his. His palms are unexpectedly callused.

“Hawkeye,” he says. He sounds serious. Hawkeye doesn’t remember telling him his name. “Time spent with you is never wasted.”

Hawkeye feels a hitch in his stomach. He swallows thickly. He’s beyond dehydrated and nobody’s giving him any fluids worth having, yet he still feels tears welling in his eyes.

“Thank you, uh, Father,” he says. The priest smiles and squeezes his hand.

“Keep resting, Hawkeye. You’ll feel better soon. BJ will be around in a little while to check up on you.” _BJ_. All of a sudden Hawkeye realizes where he is. He recognizes Father Mulcahy just as he is walking away and a new wave of emotion washes over him. Those tears spill out of his eyes and he chokes out one sob before hiding it behind a cough and closing his eyes again, willing himself back to health.

Hawkeye thinks maybe something about him has always been a little crooked. Not just because his right foot turns out when he walks and his shoulder slopes down and his hair doesn’t stay in place. He is often told to straighten up and fly right. BJ is checking the IV in the crook of his elbow and Hawkeye just manages to hold back a remark about how big his hands are.

“I used to get in trouble all the time,” he says instead.

“You get in trouble all the time now,” BJ says, smiling fondly.

“I was eleven the first time I got called into the principal’s office,” Hawkeye says, like anybody asked.

“What’d you do, Hawk, tie his shoelaces together? Thumbtacks on his chair?”

“I talked back,” Hawkeye says, “apparently. I didn’t even understand what that meant. You get asked a question and then when you answer it they tell you not to talk back. What is that, Beej? And why have I been having the same conversation with anyone who sits behind a desk since I was eleven?”

“I don’t know, Hawk,” BJ says, and his hand twitches like he’s about to take Hawkeye’s, but instead he smooths the blanket.

“He told me nobody likes a smart-aleck. Which first of all is a patent _lie_ , because everybody likes me.” BJ snorts a laugh. “But I asked what that meant, because I didn’t know, and he said– he told me, ‘I suppose you think that’s funny, do you?’”

Hawkeye doesn’t know why he’s telling BJ this story, the memory that plays in his head every time somebody lies and tells him nobody likes a smart-aleck, which is all the time.

“So I said ‘I didn’t until you said that.’”

BJ hums. “And lo, he created a monster.”

“Pierce was the doctor,” Hawkeye says, fueled by delirium and what he thinks are the bare bones of a joke. “You’re thinking of Pierce’s monster.”

“Very good, Mrs. Shelley.”

Hawkeye smiles, satisfied. “I got detention. And then I got it every day for a month. My dad wasn’t even mad. Tommy Gillis clapped all the eraser dust over Mrs. Pynchon’s desk so he’d get detention, too.”

“Sounds like a good friend.” BJ doesn’t know the half of it.

“Would you get detention with me, Beej?”

“Every day for a month,” BJ says. _Anything you want._

When he wakes up next, Hawkeye can’t remember if he actually asked that question out loud, and if he only dreamed BJ’s answer.

The next day, Hawkeye awakes to find BJ hovering at the foot of his bed.

“Oh, good,” Hawkeye manages to say. “You’re up,”

“Scoot,” BJ says. If he were allowed to give Hawkeye orders, that would have been the closest he ever came.

“Excuse me?”

“I brought something for you,” BJ says, and brandishes a book from behind his back. “I’m gonna read to you. You need morale.”

“Morale? I thought I had plenty of Al. Al Jolson. Al… Bert Schweitzer.”

“Al Houlihan,” BJ offers.

“Right.”

“You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Make jokes,” BJ says. “You should relax. Focus on getting better.”

“Believe me,” Hawkeye says, “I’ll be more relaxed if you let me joke.” 

BJ looks him all over. Hawkeye doesn’t know how it’s possible, given the state of his fever, but he can feel his temperature rising under BJ’s gaze.

“Fine,” BJ says. “But you can joke while you scoot.” Hawkeye makes room for him in the tiny cot, jostling his tubes as little as possible. BJ knows precisely where to sit so he doesn’t disturb anything. Because of limited space, Hawkeye rationalizes, BJ puts his right arm over him and holds the book in his left. Still, he lets himself fold into the crook of BJ’s arm. BJ’s right; he should relax. It would be nice if he could.

Hawkeye falls asleep to Agatha Christie’s dulcet tones and lets himself imagine, in those few moments before he’s dreaming, that they are alone. He imagines putting his arm across BJ and pulling him close. He imagines they are in a place where he could fall asleep like this every night, with the gentle, almost carefree timbre of BJ’s voice lulling him alongside the crickets that chirp incessantly behind his house. It’s nice, for a second, and then he’s out again.

It hums, just under the surface at all times, that Hawkeye is in love with BJ. He tells himself over and over again, repeating it in his head like a mantra, that he will not ruin everything right now by saying it out loud. He has too much to lose. Usually the love sits in the pit of his stomach, reminding him every second that he lives too precariously, and yet there is nothing he can do about it, so he walks the cliff’s edge and gets off on the adrenaline when he can. While he is sick, and his mind is everywhere with the fever, the love sits on his tongue, ready to come barreling out through his teeth the second he opens his mouth.

 _You will not say you love him, you will not say you love him_. BJ might not mind if he knew about him in general. That isn’t what he’s is worried about. But BJ goes crazy at the thought of infidelity, and Hawkeye doesn’t want to put him through what happened after his tryst with Carrie. So he loves him, but he doesn’t want to be with him, since that would make BJ miserable. Hawkeye would much rather have BJ as a friend who’s happy than a lover who’s miserable, so he swears he will not say out loud how he feels. Sometimes he has to bite down on his tongue to stop from saying it.

“Morning, lovebirds!” Colonel Potter’s voice startles Hawkeye from sleep. BJ is still curled around him, _Death on the Nile_ laying open across his thigh.

“Colonel,” BJ says, extricating his arm from behind Hawkeye and rubbing his hands over his face. “I must’ve dozed off.”

“Hardly!” Potter says. “That was six hours ago!” He’s being loud but he doesn’t sound mad. Did BJ really sit bedside vigil for him all night? Well, it was just an accident.

“Forgive him, Colonel,” Hawkeye says. “He knows not where he sleeps. Or who he sleeps with.”

“Get some coffee, Hunnicutt,” Potter tells BJ while he stands up and stretches, “and then they need your help over in supply.”

“You got it,” BJ says. “Here, Hawk.” He takes a tongue depressor from his pocket and marks their place in the book with it. “If you read ahead, take it slow. Don’t get overexcited.”

“Just what the doctor ordered,” Hawkeye says. “Bedrest and multiple homicide.”

“Those will definitely be the charges.”

“Hunnicutt!”

“Going, Colonel, going. See you later, Hawk,” he adds seriously. “And don’t get sick without me again. I hate to doctor alone.”

Potter shoos him, and pulls over a chair to sit down.

“How’re you feeling, son?” Potter asks.

“Could be worse,” Hawkeye says. “Of course, it could be a hell of a lot better.”

“I’m serious, Pierce, no jokes. How are you doing?”

“Do you have to call me _Pierce_ when I’m on my deathbed?”

“Hawkeye!” Potter begins to scold, but then he collects himself, softens. “Hawkeye, you’re not dying.”

“I know, I know, it was only a–” The colonel raises his eyebrows when he knows Hawkeye is about to say _joke_. “I feel like I’ve been eating the Sahara Desert by the handful, and I know if I have too much water I’ll drown in my own tissues but that doesn’t make it any easier. It was nice to sleep while BJ read to me. My dad used to read to me when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” Potter says, leaning back into the chair. “What sort of things would he read you?”.

“Anything,” Hawkeye says, picturing his bedroom back in Maine, hearing the babbling of the stream behind the house, smelling freshly fallen snow. “ _Last of the Mohicans_ , a lot, when I was really little. That’s where ‘Hawkeye’ comes from. Poems, sometimes. I remember this big book of funny little T.S. Eliot rhymes that sometimes confused me so much they’d keep me awake. Sometimes he’d just read me the paper, or medical journals. God, they were boring as hell. I think he was trying to put me off becoming a doctor.”

“Looks like it didn’t take.”

“No,” Hawkeye says, sighing fondly. What he would give to hear his father read him a boring as hell medical journal now. “It was the only thing I ever wanted to do. And not just because of Dad, either. I always wanted to help people, and I had a big enough ego to want to do it saving lives. And I’m not strong enough or fast enough or brave enough to be a firefighter, even though I always thought that would be pretty fucking cool.” Potter laughs out loud at that for a moment, before reaching over and patting Hawkeye’s knee encouragingly.

“You’re plenty brave, Hawkeye.” Hawkeye decides to ignore that, since he is the most chickenshit person he has ever met, and arguing with the colonel is infuriating. 

“Maybe you should just call me ‘Pierce.’ Maybe we’re not really on a first name basis.” Which is odd, since Hawkeye is on a first name basis with everyone.

“What do you mean, son?”

“I don’t know. But I think the words ‘regular army’ might have something to do with it.” _Shut up, Hawkeye, shut up! Can’t you go one day without your big mouth fucking you over?_ But Potter just sighs and takes it, and maybe chalks it up to Hawkeye not thinking straight, even though that’s not how Hawkeye sees it at all.

“Things were different when I first got started,” Potter says. “If I was your age, I’m not sure I would have made all the same choices.”

“My age? What about Radar’s age? God, drafted at nineteen.” Hawkeye is sweating more than he thinks should be possible, and he can taste bile rising in his throat. When he was a teenager, he never could have handled any of this. He can’t handle it now.

“Radar’ll be okay,” Potter assures him.

“How the hell can you say that? You always say ‘never trust colonels; they’re just trying to make general.’ Do you know what you’re saying when you say that, or do you really think it doesn’t apply to you?”

Potter doesn’t answer, but he does take it in stride. 

“Why don’t you get some more rest, son,” he says. “This whole ordeal should be over in two, maybe three more days.” He moves to get up.

“Wait, Colonel, I’m sorry,” Hawkeye says. He’s feeling more lucid than he has in days, but also he must be out of his mind. “It’s just, do you know what I really hate about this place? It’s not the death, per se. People die at home all the time. It’s the orders. In real life, people are supposed to die by accident, or from old age, or a sickness. They’re not supposed to be ordered to die, and arrested and called crazy if they try not to.”

“Son–” Potter starts.

“Don’t give me that. What kind of person wants to live their life here? Do you like giving orders? Because that’s what makes me sick. Sicker than any operation I’ve ever had to do, and sicker than any fever. I don’t like people who like having power over other people. That’s what’s crazy. Not me.” Hawkeye says that, although he feels plenty crazy. He also knows he’s stupid for getting his heart rate up so much. Potter gets the message somehow, whether from his words or his vital signs, that if this conversation is getting continued at all it will be when Hawkeye is less liable to blow the top off a thermometer. Hawkeye tries to read BJ’s book to calm down, but his vision is swimming, and he ends up passed out with it splayed across his chest instead.

Hawkeye didn’t mean to yell at the colonel. He feels guilty, even though he believes every word he said. The problem is that he also likes Potter, a lot, and respects him as a man, and as a C.O. in general. As fun as it was to have Henry under their thumb, Hawkeye has to admit things run smoother under Potter’s command. And he supposes, if things have to run at all, he wants them to run smoothly. So he feels guilty, not for yelling at Potter, but for not feeling guilty about it. Klinger is fluffing the pillow on the bed next to him, wearing typical nurses’ get-up, accessorized by a sheer lavender scarf.

“Ah, good morning, Captain!” he says with a big grin when he sees Hawkeye open his eyes.

“Morning, dollface,” Hawkeye says. He tries to stretch but his muscles give out under the strain and he is forced to relax back into bed. Sometimes Klinger is like BJ, in that Hawkeye can’t really figure him. They both might seem simple - they just want nothing more than to go home - but Hawkeye thinks there’s something more going on beneath the surface. BJ is a project he works on all the time, trying to figure out what really makes him tick and what that inscrutable fink is actually thinking. Klinger on the other hand…

“You know,” Hawkeye says, “it’s okay if your schtick is more than a dodge. It’s okay if you actually like to dress like that.” He swallows. “You actually look pretty cute,” he says as casually as he can.

“Hey, don’t get fresh with me, Captain,” Klinger says, not looking up from straightening blankets. 

“Would it be so bad if I did?” Hawkeye says. That gets Klinger to stop what he’s doing. He turns to face Hawkeye and looks down at him, standing over the bed. Hawkeye meets his gaze as seriously as possible, and Klinger takes a seat opposite him with his knees spread wide like he’s trying to look manly.

“What are you talking about, sir?”

“I’m just saying,” Hawkeye says, “maybe the reason you’re not getting sent home for this is because it doesn’t actually mean you’re crazy.”

Klinger fidgets with the hem of his skirt. “Major Freedman said something like that last time he was here.”

“There you go. Now you know I’m right.”

“What about you, Captain? You really think I’m cute?”

Hawkeye laughs. On the other hand, he does have those big brown eyes, great hair, and the legs to pull off his wardrobe.

“Eh, you’re not really my type.”

“Prefer something a little taller, a doctor maybe?”

Hawkeye can feel his eyes grow wide. “Hey, what are you–”

“Only joking, sir. Everybody knows Captain Hunnicutt is married.”

“Klinger–”

“Klinger!” Margaret calls as she enters post-op. “You’ve been making that bed for twenty minutes, let’s get a move on!” Klinger goes without saying another word, he doesn’t even look at Hawkeye as he leaves, but almost as soon as he’s gone, Radar takes his place, now that apparently it’s his turn on Hawk-watch. Hawkeye didn’t even see him come in, the little sneak. God love him.

Radar just sits beside the bed and twiddles his thumbs, humming quietly to himself on occasion. Hawkeye can’t sleep while he’s being stared at, but he doesn’t want to tell Radar to go, so he strikes up conversation despite his better judgment.

“Radar, I’m not sure why I seem to need constant supervision,” he says.

“Oh, we’re just worried about you is all,” he says good-naturedly. “We kinda don’t know what this place would be like without you.” Grim.

“Radar, I’m not going to die.”

“I know. I’m just saying that’s why there’s always somebody here.”

“Oh.”

“Besides,” Radar goes on, “we know how you don’t like to be alone.”

“What?” Hawkeye doesn’t mind to be alone. He likes it even, when he’s reading, or thinking about a tough problem.

“Well, we know how you always gotta have somebody around to feel happy. Either it was Trapper, or it’s BJ, or if neither of them is around you even make friends with Major Houlihan. And you always talk to me or Klinger when we’re around, and any of the nurses. I figure if you like to have a friend around then you got it.”

“Oh,” Hawkeye says. He guesses that to feel seen you first have to feel spied on. “Thank you, Radar.”

“Oh, no problem, sir.”

“ _Radar_.”

“No problem, Hawkeye.”

“Better.”

They twiddle their thumbs together in more silence.

“Radar,” Hawkeye says, “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what, sir?”

“Everything. Run this place. When I was your age… I know how annoying it is to hear sentences that start ‘when I was your age,’ but I mean it. When I was your age I couldn’t’ve done any of this. I was irresponsible, flaky. I forgot my assignments in the library, I turned up to exams hungover, I mean, I was just a kid. You’re just a kid now but in some ways you’re more of a man than I’ll ever be, you know?”

Radar’s brow is furrowed. Hawkeye can’t understand why. He doesn’t think he’s said anything to upset him.

“If you don’t mind me saying, it doesn’t really feel like that, sir,” Radar says. “People think this place runs real smooth so only I know how we’re just barely making it.”

“Oh,” Hawkeye says. He wishes he could reach over and take Radar’s hand, but his arm won’t cooperate. “I really look up to you, you know. You’re a good person, Radar.” Radar swallows and looks like he might cry. Hawkeye really doesn’t mean to make him feel badly.

“Thank you, sir,” Radar says. “That, um– I think you’re a good person, too. Get better soon, okay?” Radar doesn’t wait for an answer before speeding off to take care of some task that hasn’t even been assigned yet.

The next day, the bed next to Hawkeye is still empty, so BJ lies in it to read to him again.

“What are you doing all the way over there, huh? You know I’m not contagious.”

“You think I wanted to be crammed into that tiny cot with you?”

“How dare you! Are you ashamed to be seen with me?” Hawkeye magically transforms his real insecurity into a play argument for the whole of post-op.

“Hardly,” BJ says softly, just for him. “But you’re all arms and legs. You don’t leave room for anything else.”

“Oh,” Hawkeye says. “Anything? Or anyone?”

BJ just hums, and goes on reading.

Hawkeye interrupts him. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

BJ dog-ears the page and looks up. “Nobody is, Hawk.”

Hawkeye knows that’s true, but he can’t help feeling like he especially should not have been brought here in the first place. This life goes against his very nature. Some people meet him over here once or twice and think he’s a jerk, and asshole, a real son of a bitch. The thing is, he’s not. He’s nice. He’s thoughtful. He’s clever. And he’s very, very silly. He can’t think of four adjectives that are more frowned upon in the army. And it’s only the combination of things like that that make him this crazy firecracker everybody seems to think he is. He doesn’t mind rules when they make sense; he wears his seatbelt, scrubs up to his elbows, and only jaywalks when there aren’t any cars coming. He doesn’t understand half of the rules he has to follow over here.

“How could anyone care so much about my shoes?” Hawkeye says. BJ props himself up so he can look at Hawkeye more head on.

“Your shoes?”

“I can’t live in a place where they tell you what kind of shoes you have to wear.”

“Ah,” BJ says, and leans back down, and maybe he understands, and maybe he doesn’t.

“I wanna go home,” Hawkeye says.

“I know,” BJ says. “Me, too.”

Hawkeye knows that when he is well again, BJ will want to throw him a party, and he won’t be able to. They have too many patients now, and have been short a doctor. That doesn’t mean the occasion goes uncelebrated. The first time Hawkeye sees him when he’s better, BJ is wearing Chuck Taylor All-Stars instead of his combat boots. Hawkeye could kiss their rubber tips.

They don’t say anything about it, but Hawkeye is sure BJ knows that he notices. He must know that Hawkeye notices all the little things he does, like how he still wears all his pink-stained clothes and those horrible suspenders in Hawkeye’s favorite color. How he lets him go off half-cocked at all the military types that come through and only tells him off after they’re alone. How he sets up jokes for him and clues him in on schemes with a single look. _If this isn’t love, what is?_ Hawkeye thinks.

Hawkeye tries to do things for BJ, too. He reads to him from the _Crabapple Cove Courier_ since he doesn’t have a wife and daughter to report back on. He goes off half-cocked on all the military types that come through because he knows BJ agrees with him but is too practical to lose his cool. He sets up jokes for him and clues him in on schemes with a single look. After Hawkeye is well again, they sit in front of the Swamp and dangle empty fishing rods into their canvas bathtub. They lean back and sip ice-cold martinis on a rare beautiful day, when the wind is blowing in just the right way that they can’t smell any of the awful odors typically offered up by the camp. Hawkeye takes a deep breath and all he can smell on the breeze is BJ’s aftershave. If he closes his eyes, they are almost in Maine.

“If this isn’t nice, what is?” BJ says, the moment of peace not lost on him. _This moment, but not in a war zone_. Of course, if they weren’t in a war zone, they wouldn’t be having this moment, the two of them. It’s a sad thought that BJ has gotten to the point where he can find beauty and softness in this place, but Hawkeye supposes that is what you have to do. He allows himself to agree with him, and doesn’t even have to force himself to be silent. If this isn’t nice, what is?

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from slaughterhouse five (full title: slaughterhouse five, or the children’s crusade) by kurt vonnegut, more essential wacky anti-war war media for all you mash heads (after catch-22, as prescribed by me)
> 
> “if this isn’t nice, what is?” Is part of a larger quote from a Vonnegut speech, and you can find a collection of his speeches under that title as well. He’s my favorite author of all time probably so he was gonna come up eventually
> 
> if u want to say hi i do my mashposting @crickelwood on tumblr
> 
> anyway! Thanks for stopping by!


End file.
